I am reading up on a few different things this morning.

Southwest Florida, which is where I am right now, is in the midst of a “red tide” that began last November. These happen fairly regularly along the Gulf Coast, but this one is high up on the severity scale. There doesn’t appear to be a clear explanation for what causes them, but sustained warmer temperatures and fertilizer and other pollutant runoff are thought to stoke it. Whatever the cause, they are devastating to the environment. We are switching coasts tomorrow morning.

Portland now has electric scooters. (Why don’t we have these in Toronto?) But to combat possible concerns around urban clutter, the company, Bird, has committed to collecting all of its scooters each night and has agreed to remit $1 per scooter per day to the city. These scooters are pissing off some cities (or maybe it’s just San Francisco), but I still believe the problem will eventually get resolved. City Observatory also has this interesting piece where it compares the above scooter pricing to car pricing. Are we underpricing cars?

Finally, here is a short film on civic security in Paris. In an effort to mitigate terrorism, the city has, of course, been implementing and erecting fencing, barricades and other reactive security measures. But sadly, now that this has become a new reality, the capital is spending more time considering how these measures could be more thoughtfully designed. The video showcases some of them. Certainly a more deliberate approach, but are they just as reactive?

Maybe one of these topics will be of interest to you too.

Photo by Andreas Selter on Unsplash

Today was the first day of the year that truly felt like summer here in Toronto. It also happens to be my birthday. 

So I did the only sensible thing one should do on a day like this. I went to a rooftop patio after work, with my family, for two of my favorites: a bowl of spaghetti al limone and a negroni. Simple.

In other news, Fred Wilson wrote a great post on his blog today about why he loves Canada and why it is an increasingly important place for the tech sector. 

For those of us who already know that Canada is the greatest country on earth, it’s a noteworthy post not because it is likely to tell you a lot of new things, but because it was written by Fred fucking Wilson.

Summer time starts this weekend, at least in this part of the world. Africa and Asia generally don’t observe daylight savings time (DST), so if you just switched your clocks forward an hour, know that you are in the global minority.

The whole point of DST is that it gives us an extra hour of sunlight in the evenings during the summer months. The trade-off is a later sunrise, but since the days are longer to begin with, it’s something we have clearly come to accept.

Here is a graph showing the impact of daylight savings time on sunrise and sunset times in Greenwich. It’s from Wikipedia and it’s the clearest diagram I could find that quickly explains the change.

There’s a lot of debate around whether or not DST should be abolished or if we should simply adopt summer time, permanently. A bill is currently being reviewed that would allow Florida to observe DST year-round.

Some groups, like retailers, seem to benefit from daylight savings time. More evening sunshine hours means we’re more likely to shop. But it has a negative impact on other things such as drive-ins. (Do people still go to drive-ins?)

There are also arguments that it causes a decrease in economic output and an increase in traffic accidents – apparently we’re all groggy and accident-prone after having our sleep routines disrupted.

So what would be your recommendation?

1) Do nothing – status quo

2) Abolish daylight savings time

3) Observe daylight savings time year-round